Cherub Fanfic
by zackiziane
Summary: This is set after shadow wave and Dominic Fall's life has gone from weird to weirder to downright insane in a matter of two days and it would only get weirder. This goes for all chapters: DISCLAMER: I don't own Cherub i only own the plot of my story please read and review.


Insanity

Dominic Fall's life had gone from weird, to weirder to downright insane in a matter of two days and he was now, whilst staring at the brightly lit bleached white ceiling of what he could only think of as being a hospital or some sort of nursing home, starting to recall all the terrible ordeals of the eventful night prior to this headachy morning, or afternoon, or even night, he couldn't be sure.

He had to go and find his mum and tell her about the old man and the… then it hit him hard. He couldn't tell his mum, or his dad. They were dead, gone, forever. He sat up quickly in shock and fell straight back down again wincing at the searing pain at the back of his head. He realised how soft the pillow was and how comfortable the mattress was and he began to think properly. What had actually happened? What could he even remember?

He tried to remember what had happened from the very beginning. He was running. Fast. He couldn't remember a certain direction and he didn't think there was any intended direction, he was just running. Running for his life. Without direction but definitely a purpose. He needed to get away from that place, as far away as possible, the place where he had witnessed a man being shot in the back by a trench coat, hat and sunglasses. He couldn't see a face or the man's eyes but could tell that they would have been as cold and sinister as the metal of the trigger of his shiny hand gun which was pressing into the old man's spine. He heard a soft thump and saw a bright flash of light as the silenced weapon fired a bullet, and the life was taken, Dominic didn't know why this was happening but he was sure that this man in the trench coat wouldn't want to stick around and tell the whole story of why's and what's to a ten year old boy who was just caught staring and Dominic didn't want to find out if killing a child witness to tie up loose ends was within the man's moral capabilities. So he ran.

It was fairly dark and he was on his way home, after going to the cinema with his mates and he decided to take a shortcut through an alleyway kind of thing that leads to a street closer to his house and saves a hell of a lot of time if you don't meet a murderer committing a deadly crime there. He was meant to be meeting his parents a couple of corners from the street that this alleyway led to because they were going to be picking up some package from one of their work friends nearby so it would be more convenient for him to meet them there. Anyway it was dark and he couldn't see the obstacles waiting to trip him up scattering the floor and the patches of ice and snow waiting to make him slip so he therefore made a lot more noise than he had hoped to and there was now no doubt that the trench coat guy had seen or at least heard him running away.

He heard some more of the deadly familiar soft thumps in the air and realised he was being shot at. He turned a corner and heard heavy footsteps as the man started to run after him. He sprinted flat out to the end of the street and turned another corner hearing two more soft thumps. He hadn't been hit yet. He realised he had no idea if he'd took the right corner, he was just running; the trench coat guy hot on his tail. Luckily the man wasn't skilled enough to shoot accurately and run at the same time but the random hip-fires were close enough for the liking of Dominic. He noticed a street sign and gathered his bearings making a mental note to turn left at this next corner to be at the relative safety of his parents' car where hopefully, if the man saw some adults at the scene would leave him alone.

As Dominic turned the corner he could just about make out the two figures that were his mum and dad walking out of the work friend's house. He screamed and screamed at his parents to get them to help noticing the fact that he should've shouted earlier to at least notify someone in the nearby houses to call the police but he hadn't then and he was definitely shouting now. His parents, thankfully turned and started running towards him not really noticing the grave situation Dominic was in. They probably couldn't see the gun toting trench coat man chasing him but as long as they were there Dom still felt a little safer.

Boy was he wrong to think that. Some headlights turned the corner he just had lighting the whole scene up and everyone seemed to stop still in shock for some reason or another. Dom didn't stop, he still needed to get away. His parents had stopped in utter shock to the trench coated gun toting man chasing their son and the driver of the car for a similar reason but the man stopped for another reason entirely. Everything from then on went in hazy slow motion. Now that he could see, the trench coat man stopped, took aim and fired four rounds followed by a click and then another click. Blood had erupted from the chest of Dominic's father and then from his head and the same gruesome fate was thrust upon his mother. The clicks came as the gun was pointed at Dom's chest and the trench coat guy swore loudly. Dom felt as though he could just melt to the ground but he knew he had to get away and he had to get his head straight. He realised that there was no way out of this ugly mess and he was going to die. Simple as that. He was only ten.

He had to get his head together. The gunman like everyone else had forgotten about the car driver but as the driver shouted Dom felt a glimmer of hope, the reality of the situation still not hitting him properly and he was glad of that. As the trench coat guy reloaded his ghastly weapon and took aim, Dominic Fall, the now orphaned, ten year old boy, hopped into the random driver's car and shouted something brilliant along the lines of,

"GO!"

And they went, hearing a few more soft thumps and the loud clang of a bullet hitting the car door as they did so. The man realising he was wasting time and bullets turned and ran from the police that were inevitably going to arrive shortly after someone must have heard the racket and called them.

"Shit!" the driver screamed, who he now realised was a slightly elderly woman, not the burly man he had for some reason assumed it to be. Dom was still lying across the back seat in the same position that he was when he had jumped in. He noticed a laptop near his head with a label saying, 'property of Jennifer Mitchum'. He remembered feeling his whole body shaking, sore and the exhaustion and fear and seeing, who he assumed to be Jennifer, fiddling for something in her first aid box she'd found in the glove compartment. The last thing he remembered was seeing a needle in the woman's hand and then his whole world went black.

Now all he could see was bright white as he opened his eyes but as he blinked away the darkness he had left behind he managed to make out some figures of a bed some draws and a door with one of those locks you can open from the outside with a penny or screwdriver or something. He realised how much he needed to pee and he hoped that room was a toilet.

He got up and quickly covered himself with the soft blanket as he noticed that he was completely nude in a place he had never seen before and he had no idea when and how he had arrived. He looked around and sure enough there was a pile of pristine pressed clothes on a drawer beside him.

The clothes that were for offer was some plain boxers and socks, a pair of military style combat trousers and boots with a bright orange t shirt with some sort of logo on it of a baby with a chain of bullets around its waist standing on top of the world sporting wings, a military helmet and a bow and arrow with the initials CHERUB written underneath it. What was this place? It sure didn't seem like a hospital now. He quickly shoved these clothes on and ran to what he hoped was the bathroom and released into the toilet surrounded by the cleanest bathroom he had ever seen. While he was in there he made sure there was a towel and showered himself in the pristine hot shower making sure to try out more than one of the different shower gels and shampoos to see what smelt the nicest.

When he was all cleaned up and dry and wearing unfamiliar clothes in an unfamiliar environment and he'd checked the calendar above his bed to make sure it was indeed the Saturday before Christmas, he decided he ought to find out a little bit about where he was and why he was there and what the hell was going on.

Looking out the window he could see some frozen over football pitches, assault courses and a few children, wearing similar clothes to him, running around a track looking sweaty and pissed off. Most of the people, however, including many of the adults were at one of the frozen football pitches which now looked more water logged and muddy than snowed over. They were all slipping and sliding everywhere getting their clothes filthy and tackling each other with friendly ferocity. It looked like a lot of fun. Definitely not a hospital.

He walked out of the door and found himself in a long deserted corridor. Everyone seemed to be outside at the football pitch or doing laps around the track. He needed to find someone, whoever was in charge. He walked down the corridor and turned a corner looking for anyone to ask for information and he spotted a group of around four kids in grey t shirts with the same design as his walking and talking coming towards him. He approached them and they seemed to not have noticed him yet and he heard a bit of their conversation,

"Ryan, come on we are already late for the lakeside footy match"

"I know, max, but I have to sort out a few things for my mission, you can go without us if you want"

"OK, whatever" the guy who I supposed was max replied knowingly. "What do you think Alfie shall we leave Ryan and Grace alone to sort out their issues and Ryan's stupid mission"

"NO!" Ryan and Grace said in unison which made the other two kids snigger with laughter.

"Just because you can't get a mission max" the guy who Dom supposed was Alfie said in a slight French accent.

They were about to walk past him so Dom spoke up, "Hey, does any of you guys know where the hell I am", sounding exasperated.

"Can't talk to orange" they all said with varying amounts of enthusiasm, suggesting that they'd said that so many times before.

"What?" Dom asked, but they just carried on walking, ignoring him completely.

"Tell me then", Dom repeated, starting to get mad.

The just replied the same as before, "Can't talk to orange"

Ryan, the olive skinned one with dark hair, looked as if he was about to say something or gesture or something like that but his friend max stopped him and told them to carry on, muttering something along the lines of them not allowed to say anything and about him not getting any help.

Ryan told them about how most people getting at least a hint or something but they just carried on probably just deciding on leaving it to someone else.

Dom, seeing these kids as a lost cause to try and get information, moved on. Shortly he found another person on her own standing outside what looked like a classroom. He walked up to her and asked her the same question as before but in a strained more polite tone.

"Can't talk to orange", she said pointing to his t shirt and ran in the opposite direction to what he was walking.

He now knew that it was his t shirt that they were on about and he was getting angry and decided to take a different approach to this.

He kept walking until he found a suitable victim. His victim was a boy who looked the same age and height as himself but was wearing a red t shirt, looked really weedy and looked just as lost as he was. Dom guessed that this boy was fairly new. First he tried just asking nicely but got a grunt and a mumble of "can't talk to orange in reply". So when this didn't work Dominic decided to take advantage of, one, the element of surprise, two, the one years' worth of lessons of Aikido he was forced to have when he was seven, and three, his superiority in strength to this boy and most children his age.

Dominic was glad he'd had those lessons when he was younger and that he had took his victim by surprise and all of those things because now he definitely had to use them, as he realised he was trying to fight an opponent who had obviously had some karate lessons, or something of the sort himself, as he expertly avoided Dominic's first attack. But Dominic still had surprise on his side and attacked again with speed getting the kid into an arm lock that nearly had him on the floor. He was told once to only use these moves as self-defence but he kind of needed to use them now.

Now that he had the upper hand and his opponent was incapacitated he asked the question again. This time however the lost, scared little boy persona was exchanged with a steely I'm-never-going-to-give-into-you-and-make-a-fool-o f-myself kind of look and he just spat out, "Can't talk to orange"

Dom was getting seriously angry now so he decided it was time for plan B. He took the boy over to an empty classroom and looked for something to tie the kid up for a few seconds. He found some cables and tied them around the boy's legs to a surprisingly good effect. He needed the boys arms free to take off his red shirt and replace it with his own orange one without the boy running away. When Dom had successfully obtained the red t shirt he stretched it over his orange one because he thought they could've gave him that shirt for a reason and it was cold outside anyway so he could do with extra warmth and freed the kid before hastily running off, hoping that he wouldn't take chase without a t shirt on. He was right and now as he no longer had the orange t shirt showing he hoped people would talk to him.

He walked down the next corridor cautiously checking that anyone he saw wouldn't recognise him from before and checking that the red t shirt (which was helpfully a size larger than his orange one) covered the orange entirely. When he had found a complete stranger he walked up to them and tried to look innocent and lost like the boy he'd took the t shirt from looked.

"Excuse me" he said "I've only been here for a few days and I'm a bit lost, can you please tell me where the head's office.

The boy he was talking to looked a little confused and suspicious before giving in to his innocent stare and reluctantly telling him the directions to the reception desk on the ground floor and told him that the woman at the desk would sort him out.

He had seen a lift on his journey so he didn't have to raise more suspicion by asking where the lift was and he set of towards it. When he got in, he clicked the button for the ground floor and took his red shirt off and put it in the corner of the lift so if the head was the one who made him where that colour they would recognise him and hopefully the adult would be sensible enough to actually talk to him, unless the head was the one who made that rule, then he was screwed.

He hoped the receptionist hadn't heard of what he'd done and it didn't seem like she had as she waved him through with a smile and told him that the chairwoman was waiting for him. 'Chairwoman' he thought, sounds posh. He knocked and walked into the office that she'd pointed to ignoring the empty row of chairs sitting outside it and was greeted by a friendly smile and saw a small television screen playing something above his head.

"Hi there, I'm Zara Asker and I'm the chairwoman of Cherub campus, take a seat and I'll explain the answers to as many of your questions as I can."

He took the seat opposite Zara and decided to open up with a question that had been nagging him almost as much as the 'Where the hell am I?' one, so he asked, "Can I have a different colour t shirt?"

She laughed at this and said with a smile still on her face, "Why don't you just go and retrieve the red one from the radiator?"

She pointed at the screen behind him and he stared in horror as she pressed a rewind button on her remote.

The screen was showing the halls and rooms of the building and she seemed to be able to navigate with her remote so he guessed she had been following him on it since the start of the day. As she rewound it he saw himself going backwards towards and up the lift and everything going fast. It looked quite humorous actually but he didn't laugh as she had just paused it at the part where he had the kid in an arm lock. She was still smiling.

"The real answer to your question is no, not yet. You have to agree to take and you have to pass the recruitment tests first but before we get into all of that, no that we've cleared that mishap up, let me fill you in on what you're doing here"

Still shocked that she had been watching him all day he stuttered, "Erm… OK" and she started her speech.


End file.
